KEY POINTS:
Kiwi Antarctic adventurers Jamie Fitzgerald and Kevin Biggar hope to be at the South Pole today after 52 days on the ice - but they won't be sledding their way back to base.
Injuries and unfavourable winds meant they ditched plans to sled back to their start point and would be airlifted back.
Biggar, 37, of Auckland, and Fitzgerald, 26, of Tauranga, have battled unseasonable weather, soft snow, ice ridges and hamstring injuries to Fitzgerald on their trek to the pole. Despite that, they have covered more than 1100km, dragging 160kg sleds unsupported by supply drops.
Biggar's former transatlantic rowing partner and spokesman for the duo Rob Hamill, said there had been tailwinds heading to the pole, meaning the plan to use kites to drag them speedily back to base had been thwarted.
Hamill said Fitzgerald had suffered from hamstring injuries for 600km, which had also helped make the decision to stop at the pole.
"I would like to think that if the weather and the conditions had been better, that they would still be continuing and the injury wouldn't be the final factor.
"But all those things together have made the final decision."
The cold was also biting, Biggar wrote in an web diary update from near the pole.
"I haven't been able to feel the fingertips on my hands for a few weeks and eight of my 10 toes are all black. But that doesn't matter as we're just 50km away from the pole," he said.
- NZPA
